Masked Feelings
by Samantha Arsenic
Summary: Jack never died. She and Riddick are called to meet with an old friend and take a seemingly normal slave back home. What they don't know is that this child's home is a place they never wanted to return.
1. Reunions

**AN: Keep in mind that although I wish I owned Vin Desil and everything PB and TCOR related...I don't. And I lurve you all...so don't sue me or claim that I'm being a plagiarist. Because the really hurts my feelings...and I am no such thing. I respect your comments and stories, please respect mine. You don't have to like it ,but don't flame me because you disagree with something I've written.**

**Righto! On that note. Begin the Story!**

_"Pretty girl is suffering while he confesses everything.  
Pretty soon she'll figure out what his intentions were about.  
and that's what you get for falling again;  
you can never get him out of your head."_

These lyrics rang in the mind of what appeared to just be a normal young woman. She groaned as she pulled her self off of the couch and out the back door into the courtyard of her house. It was a sunny day on Helion Prime and the aforementioned female could hear the sounds of mid-afternoon New Mecca around her. She walked to the edge of the large courtyard. Peeking over the gate, she smiled at the children that laughed and shouted in the streets. Unknown to her, an old friend was sneaking up on her.

"Boo!" the intruder exclaimed, scaring the smaller girl off of the fence.

The startled girl's feet hit the ground and she spun around with an expression that caused her friend to laugh. Upon recognizing the taller girl, she wiped the expression off her face.

"Jack!" She laughed and smacked the girl lightly.

"You should've seen the look on your face, Mercuri!" Jack exclaimed, patting the shorter girl on the head. She looked her friend over and whistled. "You sure have changed. Just look at you. Your skin is darker, your hair color is different and you've grown...I mean really grown. Jeeze, wait till Riddick sees you."

"He's not here is he?" Mercuri asked, her expression changing to one of discomfort. "I mean obviously he's on this planet, probably in New Mecca...but he's not in my house is he?"

"Where else would he be?" Jack asked her. Upon seeing Mercuri's expression she frowned slightly. "Is everything okay?"

"We didn't exactly part on the best of terms." Mercuri said, looking at the floor and trying to forget about what had happened.

"Yeah...he told me that." Jack said, taking Mercuri gently by the arm and walking towards the house. "Do you wanna talk about it?" She asked, seeing that her friend was upset.

Mercuri shook her head and said, "No. I'm fine. I'm over it now.", before she plastered on a smile that could've passed for genuine. It fooled Jack easily, but it couldn't fool the owner of the silver eyes that had been watching the pair of girls through a second story window.

'_The kid's grown._' He thought to himself, moving away from the window. He heard the girl come inside and could distinguish two laughs. One was real, '_Jack's_', he thought. One was fake, '_Mercuri's_', He told himself. The man ran a large tanned hand over his freshly shaven head and sighed as the girls' ever light footfalls stopped outside the study he was in.

"He's in here." Jack told Mercuri, thinking everything was fine with her friend. She hadn't seen through Mercuri's act, simply because she was glad to have found her friend again.

Mercuri reached out a petite hand and her slender fingers wrapped around the handle to the door. With a soft tug, she slid the door open to be greeted with…


	2. Darkness

"Darkness." She sighed. "Always with the darkness."

"It's how I best operate, Doll face." Riddick's deep bass voice came forth from the darkened study. He had taken off his goggles and could now see the colors radiating off of both girls. Jack radiated mostly cool colors, like purple and blue. While Mercuri radiated greens, oranges, and red. He could tell that her face had flushed when he called her doll face.

"That's not my name, Riddick." Mercuri said, her real pain echoing slightly in her voice. "It's Mercuri." She sighed and said, "Lights?"

"Yes?" A mechanical voice answered.

"Riddick's tolerance setting, please." She replied. The lights turned up to a tolerable setting for both Riddick and the girls.

"You're house talks to you Mercuri? And how does it know what Riddick's tolerance level is?" Jack asked, slightly amazed. She sat down on a plush sofa, next to Riddick.

"It's all just a program. I programmed a setting in for Riddick, after seeing how much light he could take before." She responded.

"Well what is it then? What was so important that you had to make us risk our freedom?" Riddick asked, putting his arm around Jack, who, on reflex, snuggled up next to him. His eyes could take more light than Mercuri had on the setting, but he wouldn't tell her.

She clenched her teeth in an effort not to get angry about Jack and Riddick being all over each other. "I need you to return someone to their home."


	3. Shaen

**AN: I own nothing except the plot and the Characters that aren't from PB or TCOR. And you'd pronounce Shaen's name like Shane...Is was my Jedi name a long time ago...I forgot how I made it but it always looked like a misspelling of Shane...so that's how it's pronounced.**

"No." Riddick said, before Mercuri got the chance to explain. "We're done shipping slaves back home. If that's the only reason you called us here then our visit is officially over." He stood up and was about to leave when the sound of the front door being slammed as well as various crashes met everyone's ears.

"Mercuri?" Jack questioned, looking at her friend for an explanation.

"Shaen." Mercuri answered simply. She glared at Riddick, who was blocking the door and said, "Sit."

Riddick growled but finally sat, with the encouragement of Jack. "Who is Shaen?"

Mercuri didn't answer because her answer would've been pointless, as Shaen had just opened the door. "This is Shaen."

Everyone's eyes fell on the figure that stood just outside the doorway.

"Shaen. Come in here." Mercuri called.

Instead of entering the room the figure ran down the hallway. In the silent house, they could hear Shaen's footfalls stop and the sound of a box on the wall opening. The lights dimmed even more and Mercuri sighed.

"Of course. The lights." She muttered, loud enough that only Riddick and Jack could hear her. This caused Jack to raise an eyebrow. "Shaen, sweetie I'm sorry I forgot. Come on in here now." She called down the hallway.

Once again, a figure appeared in the door way. This time Shaen walked into the room. It took a while for everyone's eyes to adjust, but when they finally did, they were staring at what appeared to be a boy. One that was no more than fifteen. He was wearing black cargo shorts that came down to his knees, an extra large black shirt with the word Aiden on it, and some dark gray skate shoes. His hair was cut to his chin and it was bone straight. Shaen's bangs were swept to one side (emo style) and a black beanie covered the rest of his deep red hair. His right arm had almost thirty rubber bracelets on it, his left arm had one ball chain bracelet on it, and he wore two necklaces. One of them being a ball chain necklace, the other one being a strange pendant.

"You're Shaen?" Jack questioned, getting up and walking towards the boy. She noticed that Shaen's body was covered with multiple cuts, especially around his knees and forearms. "Who did that to you?" She asked, stopping a few feet from the boy and pointing towards the rather long, dirty looking cut on his leg.

Shaen looked from the strange woman that was asking about the blood onher leg to Mercuri. She ignored Jack and instead walked over to Mercuri and pointed from the lights, to Riddick, back to the lights, then to herself , then to Jack and finally to the cut on her leg. The entire time she did this, She was making a clicking noise in her throat.

"What the hell did he just say?" Riddick asked, walking towards them.

"She." Mercuri corrected. "Shaen is a girl."


	4. Hybrid

"A girl?" Jack asked, coming closer to Shaen. "What did she do, Take a page out of my book?" When Jack reached out to touch Shaen's hair, the smaller girl retaliated.

She struck out with enough force to cause Jack to stumble backwards and let out a gasp of surprise. Just as Shaen was about to attack again, she felt herself being pinned against someone and, within the next second, she felt the cold metal of Riddick's shiv against her throat.

"Move and I'll slash your throat open." Riddick growled. He turned his head to the left slightly and asked, "You okay Jack?"

Jack nodded and said, "Yeah. She licked my arm. That's kind of gross." Jack turned to Mercuri and asked, "What the hell is she?"

"And why the hell does she click like some damn alien?" Riddick added becoming slightly annoyed with Shaen's obviously angry clicking.

"Riddick. Calm down. Shaen was just playing. Please, let her up. I will explain everything to you both, just as soon as I get her cleaned up." Mercuri said.

"Make one wrong move and you're dead." Riddick said threateningly to Shaen. He shoved her towards Mercuri and received a glare that pierced through his soul.

Shaen clicked something very bad-mouthed towards Riddick and was rewarded with a smack on the mouth from Mercuri and a warning.

"Watch your mouth, Shaen Ayana." Mercuri warned. She sat Shaen down at a desk and handed her some drawing paper and a pencil.

Shaen grabbed the supplies and started to run out of the room, clicking something incoherent, even to Mercuri.

"Shaen. Get back here." Mercuri called. "Riddick and Jack MIGHT take you home, still."

Shaen turned and pretended to be contemplating returning to the room and calming down for a minute. Then she shrugged her shoulder, stuck out her tongue, and darted from the room and down the stairs.

Riddick heard the back door open and Shaen's footsteps go out into the courtyard, where they eventually stopped.

"Shaen is….interesting. What is she?" Jack asked, looking out the window at the colors of the sunset as they washed over the courtyard. Below them, Shaen was busy drawing a lizard she had found lurking behind one of the large flowerpots.

"I'm not sure exactly. All I know is that she's a hybrid; a cross between human and something else. Please understand that I wouldn't ask you to ever return to the planet that I've come to believe that she's from. I just want you to find her a better home. I can no longer keep her." Mercuri said, looking down at Shaen with sorrow. The girl was now crouching upon the garden wall, looking out into the city.

"Why not?" Jack asked. She looked concerned and looked to Riddick for help, but he was gone. _I hate it when he does that._ Jack thought.

"I'm…well…Promise not to get emotional?" Mercuri asked, turning to her friend. She was glad Riddick wasn't here to hear what she was about to say, though she silently wondered how far away he really was.

"I promise." Jack said, Leading Mercuri away from the window and towards the couch where she and Riddick had just been sitting.


	5. Drawing

Riddick had slipped out quietly and was now silently walking up behind Shaen. He'd left the room as soon as he'd heard Mercuri say that the kid was a Hybrid. _Such an innocent kid. Wonder how old she really is._ Riddick thought to himself. He cleared his throat and asked, "What are you drawing?"

Shaen nearly fell off the wall. She turned to Riddick, saw that it was him and handed him the picture of the lizard, instead of the one she was working on. "Gecko." She told him.

"So you can speak." Riddick mused, looking at the very skillfully drawn gecko picture. It almost looked like the real thing. "Nice job." He set the paper next to her and pulled himself up onto the wall, his back facing the street. Not that it mattered, because the streets were empty, now that night had fallen. "What are you working on now?" He asked.

Shaen smirked, covered her drawing and handed him a piece of paper and a pencil. "What are you working on?" She gathered up her drawings and Riddick got a brief glimpse of a human looking figure before she covered it up with the lizard.

"I can't draw." Riddick told her, silently wondering why he was bothering to be even slightly nice to the kid. He went to hand the pencil back to Shaen but she shook her head.

"Nope. Everyone can draw. You can too. I'll help you." She said, picking up her pencil and a clean piece of paper. She dragged Riddick toward the table and said, "First, draw a stick figure. Do it lightly because you'll erase some of the lines later." She drew a stick figure towards the center left of her paper and watched as he drew his. "No. no. no. Your arms don't come out of your neck." She erased the arms on Riddick's stick figure and redrew them so his figure had a neck. "Like that." She told him.

Riddick rolled his eyes and made another attempt to get away from having to draw. "See, kid. I can't even draw a stick figure."

"Well you'll never learn if you don't practice." She said pointedly. "Now, is your person a boy or girl?" She asked him.

_The kid's smart…and very motivated._ Riddick thought. He shook his head and said, "I don't know…does it matter? They're both drawn almost the same way right?"

"No." Shaen said. She sighed and drew another stick figure. The second one was taller than the first one and it was holding the first one close. "This one is a girl." She said, pointing to stick person #1. "This is a boy." She said, pointing to the taller of the two.

About half an hour later, Mercuri stuck her head out of the doorway and motioned for Jack to look as well. "They've been sitting out there for half an hour." Mercuri explained.

"I wonder what they're doing." Jack said, amazed that Riddick had tolerated Shaen for half an hour and was still sitting there, taking her criticism. "See? He's just a big softie on the inside." Jack said, going back to the kitchen and putting dinner on four plates. She carried two of them outside and set them down in front of the two empty chairs. The outside lights had come on twenty minutes ago, so the courtyard was bathed in a soft yellow glow. "What are you two doing?" Jack asked, sitting down next to Riddick.

"Drawing." Shaen responded. She covered her drawing up again with a picture of a duck and a picture of the gecko.

"Actually, Shaen's drawing. I'm massacring the skill of drawing." Riddick said, holding up his badly drawn picture of a person. "She swears that everyone can draw." Riddick muttered so that only Jack and Mercuri, who had come out with the other two plates, could hear him.

"You're not doing that bad. You should see some of the things that I drew when Shaen was teaching me." Mercuri said. She looked over at Shaen and said, "What are you working on now, Sweetie?"

Shaen grinned and handed her the picture of the Gecko. "Gecko." She said, turning her attention back to the picture of the couple. She finished shading the female and laid the drawing face down on the table. Shaen then turned her attention to the first drawing that she had been working on when Riddick had snuck up on her. She huddled over it and worked on it.

"Shaen. Put down the drawings for a little bit Dinner's on the table." Mercuri said. Shaen nodded and set the drawing in her lap, face down.

Jack looked at the finished drawing that was face down and picked it up. "Wow that's good." She said, in regards to the female figure. She looked at her counterpart and added, "In fact…that looks like…Holy shit!" Jack's eyes widened and she handed the drawing to Riddick. "Look like anyone you know?" She asked.

Riddick set his fork down and took the drawing. He looked at the picture and raised his eyebrow. He turned to Shaen, who had just finished her dinner and asked, "Where did you see this?" He was trying to keep his voice calm. Maybe she had just made it up. Just because it looked like Carolyn and Johns didn't mean anything. Lots of people kind of reminded him of Johns. They usually all died shortly after…but the point was that there were people that looked like Johns. Maybe she had just seen their pictures on the news. Riddick set the picture own and sighed.

"They were in my dream once. I think that's my daddy and his friend." Shaen said, smiling slightly at them. "What's wrong?" After a pause, she turned back to her original drawing.

"Mercuri…we need to talk to you some more." Jack said. She looked at Shaen and said, "Sweetie, we'll be right back. We need to talk to your mother. Why don't you draw some more?" She left the drawing on the table and followed Riddick and Mercuri inside.


	6. See?

Shaen pretended to be drawing, but she could hear the fighting going on inside the house. Riddick and Jack were getting angry with her mommy and her mommy was yelling back. Shaen only caught bits of the conversation, but she heard enough to know it as about her. _I made mommy mad. Now she's fighting with her friends. This is all my fault._ She took one look at the scene happening just inside the house and knew that she had to go away. _If I go away then mommy and her friends will be happy again._ She thought. Shaen looked down at her drawing of who she thought was her daddy and his friend. She felt the anger well up inside of her. _He left me and now he's causing problems again!_ She thought, allowing the anger to continue to consume her. She ripped the picture in half and threw the plates and everything off the table. That wasn't enough to calm her down, but it was enough to stop everyone from fighting. They looked out and saw Shaen trashing the yard. She tipped over the table and started to mess up anything she could get her hands on.

She heard the door open and Mercuri calling her, "Shaen. Calm down. It's okay." Mercuri stepped out onto the porch and towards Shaen, who was close to the wall. "Come here. Everything's fine."

"No!" Shaen screamed. She looked confused and hurt. "It's not okay." She said. With that, Shaen hopped over the wall and took off into the dark streets of New Mecca.

The amount of emotion in Shaen's voice surprised Jack, who didn't think she'd ever heard so much emotion in anyone before. Pure, unbridled emotion.

Riddick surveyed the damage that the small girl had done to the porch and was amused at the amount of strength the girl contained within her small frame. _But she's not done yet. She's got too much adrenaline. I can smell it._ Riddick thought as he set the table back upright.

"I wish our little argument could've waited till later." Mercuri said, fetching the outside broom and sweeping the remains of dinner into a pile. "As you can see, she doesn't take to well to fighting. Especially when she thinks she caused it."

"What in the hell caused her to just explode like that?" Jack asked, setting chairs back up and up righting potted plants. Mercuri shrugged and put the broken dishes and spoiled food into the trash bin.

"This." Riddick said, holding up the shredded picture of Carolyn and Johns.

Mercuri shook her head and sighed. She looked out towards the street and said, "I wonder where she goes."

"She's done this before?" Riddick questioned, raising an eyebrow. "And here I thought we were special." He chuckled.

Jack chuckled and slugged him in the arm softly. "Be nice."

"Yes. She's done this plenty of times. And she always runs off, as if she's ashamed of herself. She'll be back when we wake up tomorrow." Mercuri said. She told them more about Shaen and explained that her anger outbursts were just one of the reasons that Shaen needed to find a real home. She needed to find someone that could control her whenever it happened.

They all waited a few more hours and still no sign of Shaen. Finally Mercuri said to call it a night and she and Jack went inside.

Riddick stood outside for a little while longer, staring at the dark space between two of the trees in the yard. He knew Shaen was there, he could see the oranges, purples and blues that made up her body heat pattern. Riddick shook his head and walked inside, deciding that he would come out when the girls were asleep and get Shaen to come inside. _If she's still here._ He thought.

Shaen let her breath go when she saw Riddick close the door and disappear inside the house. _He looked right at me. Like he knew I was here._ She thought to herself. Shaen sat down in the shadows and watched her house, deciding that she would sneak in once everyone had gone to sleep. She stayed in her crossed legged position for almost three hours before finally deciding that it was safe to sneak inside. Just as she stood up, she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"Coming inside now?" Riddick asked, just as Shaen stood up. He had silently snuck up behind the girl, only moments ago. At first, he'd thought she was asleep, and then she'd made an attempt to stand.

Shaen turned around and her hybrid eyes registered Riddick's form standing behind her. She took a step back and asked, "How did you know I was out here?"

"It was just a hunch." Riddick said. "Are you planning on going back inside your house anytime soon?" He questioned. He started walking towards the porch and looked back at Shaen.

"You really are an interesting character, Riddick." Shaen said, following him.

"Character is what you are in the dark, Kid. Remember that." Riddick said. He looked at the house and said, "Exactly how were you planning on getting back in there?"

Shaen smirked and said, "You'll see. Then I'll come down and unlock the door for you. Just wait here and watch a pro." She walked over to the edge of the porch, where a tree grew, and climbed the tree. From there, she shimmied out onto a branch and hooked her legs around the ornate carvings that formed the porch roof's support beams. She wasn't worried about breaking the support beams because they were thick and sturdy. From there, she let go of the tree branch and allowed herself to swing upside down. "The tricky part." She muttered, mostly to herself. She swung herself upwards and grabbed onto the top side of the slanted roof. Shaen gripped onto the roof's tiles as best she could, before freeing her legs and pulling herself up onto the roof. She looked down at Riddick and said, "It's easy as pie from here." She turned and slowly climbed up the roof, only slipping a few times. She reached the bathroom window and the center of the roof. Planting her left foot in the space where a shingle was missing, Shane pulled a flat tip screw driver from under the windowsill and used it to help her open the window.

Riddick watched the entire display and shook his head when he saw Shaen disappear through the open window. "That's fairly simple" He mused to himself. Riddick waited a few moments as Shaen replaced her screwdriver and closed the window. She was at the door and opening it shortly.

"See?" She asked rhetorically. "That's how I get back inside." She stepped back and allowed Riddick to enter, before closing and locking the door behind her. She turned to ask him why he'd come out to get her, but found that he was gone. Shrugging her shoulders, Shaen went up to her bedroom and found sleep almost instantly.


	7. Everyone Has A Beast

**AN: I own nothing except Mercuri, Shaen, and the situations that I write here. Though I can assume that you all know who I'd like to own…it is my sad duty to write that I don't own the Sexy Beast known as Riddick.**

**Riddick: No one owns me.**

**Jack: I sure do!**

**Riddick: Whatever, Princess.**

**Mercuri: what are you talking about Shaen for?**

**Riddick: I'm not.**

**Shaen: SHUT UP AND LET'S GET ON WITH THE STORY ALREADY!**

**All: -random comments-**

**Onward! With the story. Chapter Seven: Everyone's got a Beast.**

It was late morning before Shaen woke up. Without opening her eyes, she sensed several figures in her room. Mumbling something incoherent she rolled over and pulled both of her soft and fluffy comforters over her head. She then curled up in a little ball and wrapped the comforters around her.

"Shaen. Are you awake?" Mercuri asked, looking over at the dark red and black ball of fluffy blankets. She silently wondered how Shaen could stand sleeping under two down comforters in 85 degree weather.

"Why are they in my room?" Shaen asked from the little air space she had made for herself within the comforters.

"Jack wanted to make sure that you had come back and Riddick needs one of your comforters." Mercuri said, happy that Shaen bothered to come back.

"So what, you were just going to take it from me while I was sleeping?" Shaen questioned, clearly getting flustered. _First they come into my house and want to take me away, then they fight with my mom, now they want my blankets! Why are they so special? What makes them so different from mom's other visitors? And what the hell?_ Shaen's thoughts were interrupted by suddenly being pulled out of bed. She hit the cold stone floor and screamed.

At the sound of her scream, Jack fell down and held her head. Mercuri looked from the screaming child, to the stunned Jack, to Riddick, who appeared to be unfazed by the high pitched screaming. "Shaen…" Mercuri started to speak but her words were drowned out by the screaming. Instead, she helped Jack out of the room. Upon closing the door, the noise was silenced.

"What the fuck?" Jack asked, standing up and shaking her head, as if trying to clear her brain of the screaming. Her ears were ringing and she wondered why no one else was really affected.

"I warned him." Mercuri said softly. She shook her head and added, "You can't hear her now because she has a sound proof room."

"Why didn't it cause you or Riddick to even flinch?" Jack asked, a bit rudely. She almost sounded accusing.

"I've put up with it for a while. It affects me, yes. But not like it affects you. And I couldn't tell you why it doesn't affect Riddick. He's a mystery…even to me." Mercuri added the last part in a whisper.

Meanwhile, in the room—

Shaen saw the door close and a split second later, she felt a large hand cover her mouth. _Riddick._ She thought. Then, she felt his other arm wrap itself around her, just under her ribcage, and lift her up. Even though she knew who it was, she still fought against his hold. Shaen's true nature, her beast, so to speak, was constantly alert. It surfaced instantly and consumed her body in mere seconds. That was what made her fight against everyone and anyone that tried to help her, silence her, or most importantly, tame her. Shaen was still screaming, but it was muffled by Riddick's hand.

"Stop screaming." Riddick's deep thunder-like voice commanded. He held her tightly against him as she struggled.

Shaen stopped screaming and continued to struggle, just barely noticing that each time she did so, Riddick held her tighter to his chest. _It's nice and warm._ She thought. _And very hard._ She added.

_You know what else could be hard?_ Her beast taunted in her head. _If you just moved the right way he might..._

_EW! No. Shut Up. Who asked for your primal advice anyway? _Shaen's tame side snapped back.

_I don't need to have anyone ask for it. You were thinking it so don't start that 'oh I'm grossed out' bullshit with me. I'm your primal side. Just because you let that stupid woman tame part of you doesn't mean you're child friendly. It just means I have a fight to win._ Her primal side snarled

_What the hell are you talking about? What fight? Why the hell am I talking to myself?_ The tame side of her questioned.

"Got it?" Riddick's voice asked, snapping Shaen out of her battle with herself.

"What?" She asked, noticing that Riddick had let go of her and was now staring her down, like a cat.

"Were you listening to a word I said?" He growled. _You know she wasn't. Why bother asking that question?_

_Because you just witnessed her fighting back her beast._

_Did I?_

_Look dipshit. You've seen the way Jack looks when she's fighting with her beast. This kid just did what was either a fucking great impression, or it was her fighting with her beast. What the hell are the odds of it being just a great impression? None. Exactly. Damn, Riddick. You're going soft. Now I've got an internal skirmish to win._

_It's more of a street fight. And I'm not fucking going soft!_

The more humane part of Riddick just shut up, though it refused to relinquish control.

_That's more like it. Back in control. Now…_

"No I wasn't listening." Shaen said, pulling Riddick from his thoughts. "Would you care to repeat yourself?" She gingerly walked over to her closet and pushed some buttons on the side consol. When she opened the closet, there was a slightly more girly outfit inside. Shaen grabbed the clothes and went behind a changing screen that was tucked into the corner of her room.

"I said you need to learn to control yourself before we'll take you with us. We're staying for a few weeks. In the mean time, you'll train with Jack and me. Every morning. Got it?" Riddick repeated, turning his back to Shaen and leaving the room.

"Whatever." She muttered and stepped out from behind the curtain. She was wearing the loose black shirt that she'd slept in and some form fitting dark blue jeans. After fixing her hair into two ponytails and swooshing her bangs in front of her left eye, she put a backwards baseball cap on and pulled her skate shoes on as well. _I need to make my bed before I meet up with Seth and Danny._ She subconsciously thought. Shaen turned towards her bed and growled. "Not the black one." She sighed, before making the bed with only the red comforter. _I'll get you for that Riddick. _She thought before leaving her room and running past Jack and Mercuri in the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Mercuri called after her.

"Outside." She called back. "I'm meeting Seth and Da-" Shaen ran into someone and fell backwards. "Jesus, Riddick. Watch where the hell you're going!" She spat, standing up and starting towards the door. She was stopped by Riddick grabbing her arm and pressing a shiv against her neck.

"Watch your mouth." He growled. Riddick shoved the girl away and watched as she walked out the door. He was tempted to follow her and find out exactly where she went during the day. _Maybe then I can find her when she decides to run away again._ He subconsciously knew that he couldn't go outside during the day. But that didn't stop him from wanting to. "Where is she going?" He asked Mercuri.

"Heck If I know anymore. All she said was that she was going to meet up with Seth and Danny." Mercuri replied, motioning for Riddick to join them for breakfast. She set an empty plate down in front of him and told him to help himself.

"Who are they?" Jack asked, hoping to possibly shed some light on what Shaen did during the day.

"They're her 'friends'." Mercuri said, making air quotations when she said friends. "Personally, I wish she'd make some female friends. But she seems to only be interested in the future convict type of boys. So far, Seth and Danny are two of the biggest trouble makers and womanizers in the community."

"What do they do?" Jack asked. She remembered a time when she was like Shaen, always hanging out with the bad boys of the neighborhood and doing everything from toilet papering someone's house to killing someone and running away. _That's when I met Riddick._ She thought.

_That's when you got soft. _Her beast growled.

_Shut up!_ Jack told herself.

Mercuri was about to respond to Jack's question, when they heard a thud from overhead. "Not again." She sighed.

Riddick's hearing registered the thud as something equal to a teenage human falling from the window sill, onto the floor. Then he heard Shaen whisper, "Be Quiet. There are people downstairs." Riddick chuckled to himself and looked at Mercuri for an explanation.

"Shaen, Seth, and Danny." Mercuri said, getting up to take care of breakfast. She and Jack put away the food and Mercuri took care of the Dishes, while Jack followed Riddick into his room.

"Jack…Do you still think it's a good idea for Shaen to tag along?" Riddick asked, gently rubbing Jack's arms.

"She reminds me a lot of myself. I think we should give her a chance." Jack said, surrendering herself to Riddick's touches. She felt him wrap her in his arms and nuzzle her neck.

"You know what I think?" Riddick asked, his lips grazing Jack's neck. He felt his beast flare up and he tried to repress it some. "I think it's time we had some fun." With that, he picked Jack up and carried her over to his bed.

"I think you're right." Jack said, bringing Riddick close enough and Kissing him.

(I'll leave you all to use your imaginations and figure out what happened then.)


	8. Shaen's Underground Record

The rest of the day went by without any serious problems. Mercuri was at work, Jack had left to explore New Mecca and Riddick was hanging around the house. Well, not really hanging, more of going from room to room and mapping out each in his head. It was a habit of his that had proved helpful, to escaping quickly, more than once. He stopped at Shaen's door, because it was shut and locked, and knocked once. Movement inside the room and the shutting of a closet door told Riddick that Shaen was, in fact, still alive. She hadn't left her room since they heard her and her friends sneaking back in.

"J-Just a minute." Shaen called out in a somewhat stressed voice.

Riddick heard her stumble across the room, followed by two male laughs, and eventually unlock the door. She opened it up, expecting to see Mercuri or Jack, but was met with the view of a highly chiseled chest that was covered by a black wife beater. Trying to stifle the relieved sigh that had arisen in her throat, Shaen looked up and asked,

"Yeah?" she questioned, fidgeting. Shaen obviously didn't like being distracted with whatever she was doing.

"I need to look around your room." Riddick said, wondering what was making the teenager so angsty.

"Why?" Shaen asked.

Riddick caught the faint scent of stress radiating off of her and raised his eyebrow._ She's up to something._ He thought briefly before pushing Shaen aside and entering her room. He noticed one of the two boys lounging on Shaen's bed while the other one was sitting on the floor by her window, nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be going on, and then he remembered hearing the closet door shut before she'd opened her room door.

"Who are your friends?" He asked, stopping in the middle of the room and surveying it. He mentally took in the placement of the furniture, windows, door and finally…the closet. He noticed that the floor surrounding where Shaen must've just been sitting was covered with papers, which in turn, were covered with mathematical and scientific equations.

His question had caught Shaen off guard and she immediately stopped fidgeting behind him and moved in front of her closet.

"Seth." She pointed to the boy with long black hair by her window.

"Hey." Seth said and half waved at Riddick before returning his gaze to the outside world.

"And I'm Danny." The boy on her bed said. He pulled at one of the blue spikes that covered his head.

"Are you done now?" Shaen asked, leaning against the closet door with a non-chalet attitude.

Riddick crossed his arms and said, "What's in the closet?" He took a step towards the closet, noting the wy that it made Shaen fidget.

"None of your damn business. Now get out of my room." She demanded.

Riddick silently laughed at her weak attempt to get him to leave. He reached towards the closet knob just as Jack's voice floated up the stairs.

"Richard? Are you home?" Jack called. They had all decided to call Riddick and Jack by different names, for safety reasons. Riddick became Richard and Jack became Jacqueline.

Upon hearing Jack's voice, Riddick turned towards the door and silently walked out. _I'll find out what's in the closet later._ He thought as he walked down the stairs.

"Anything change?" Riddick asked, coming up behind Jack and wrapping her in his arms tenderly.

"Not a lot. Apparently Shaen and her buddies, whoever they are, are the shit in the underground systems now." Jack said, smiling when Riddick nuzzled her neck. "Compared to you, they're innocent, but they've pulled off some risky shit. Look at this stuff." She said and pulled away from Riddick to spread papers around on the kitchen table. "Like this one. She hotwired a police car and sent it speeding directly into a protest against allowing minors to leave the system unaccompanied."

This caught Riddick's attention. How could Mercuri let Shaen run around limitless? It really made no sense to him. _She's fifteen and already the best in the underground. What else did she do?_ He wondered. "What else?" He asked Jack.

"Well on top of doing every petty crime imaginable and then some, she's undergone several dangerous experiments…done to her by her so-called friends." Jack picked up the file that she had gotten from one of the underground junkies and read more. "Riddick, she's smart as hell. Look." Jack showed Riddick the file that had pictures of the experiments and descriptions of what was supposed to happen and paragraphs of what actually happened. All but one of paragraphs coincided with the adjoining description. The last experiment was supposed to induce a state of total vertigo for a week. However, it actually caused Shaen to suffer from partial dementia.

"So she's a genius who just happens to be insane?" Riddick asked, leafing through the photographs of the various inventions and experiments that Shaen had created in the last four years.

"Only slightly." A new voice said from behind them. Both Jack and Riddick turned away from the files to see Mercuri standing in the kitchen doorway, holding a bag of groceries and looking disheartened.

"Mercuri, we didn't mean to int-" Jack started. She stopped when Mercuri held up her free hand and smiled a little at them.

"It's perfectly fine, I was going to tell you all about Shaen's underground reputation later on tonight. But yes, she's slightly insane. That's what causes her violent outbursts." Mercuri said setting the bag down on the counter and beginning to put the groceries away.

"Are you sure it has nothing to do with her being an **_alien_**?" Riddick asked, not convinced. He watched Jack roll her eyes and give him a look that told him to be nice.

"No. I'm not sure of anything. I don't even know what kind of _hybrid_ she is." Mercuri said, turning to face Riddick. A flash of the old Mercuri was seen in her eyes before it flickered and faded.

Riddick saw the flash and it was then that he realized that the Mercuri he remembered was gone. Riddick only remembered her as the Mercuri that was full of unbridled passion and defiance, the one that has a strong will and a fierce heart, the one that almost lost her life saving his. But in that moment, as he watched the old Mercuri flicker back and fade away, he realized that she had changed. Her unbridled passion had disappeared and been replaced with unconditional love for the girl upstairs. Her defiance had been erased completely and, in its place, was allowance and acceptance. Her strong will was weak now and her fierce heart wasn't as intense.

"Jack do you mind if I talk to Mercuri alone?" Riddick asked. He looked at Jack, silently telling her that this was important.


	9. 4x6 Hover Board

"Not at all. I'll just go check on Shaen." Jack said, not questioning the look. She headed upstairs just as Seth and Danny were leaving through Shaen's window. Jack knocked on Shaen's door and heard a faint 'who is it' from the other side. "It's Jack." She said and waited to be allowed in the room.

"Oh. Come on in." Shaen said, not looking up from the parts and pieces that were scattered around her. She heard Jack open the door, step inside the room, and close it behind her.

"What'cha doing?" Jack asked, seating herself on Shaen's bed. She looked at the various screws, bolts, metal pieces and ship parts that Shaen was tinkering with.

"Making a hover board." Shaen replied, finally looking up at Jack. "Can you hand me that Shliverobo 3x over there?" She asked, gesturing to what looked liked a cross between a computer monitor and a keyboard.

"Here ya go." Jack said. She watched in amazement as Shaen deftly pulled the Shliverobo apart and wrenched several wires, chips, and holographic interfaces out of it before discarding it into the pile of other things she'd pulled apart. She then connected the wires to the ultra slim heat driven power source that she'd built and inserted it into the hover board's frame.

"How long have you been working on that?" Jack asked, looking at the slim and yet sleek machine that Shaen was constructing.

"Couple of hours." Shaen said as she strategically placed several chips into the board and finally connected the holographic interfaces into the 4x6 monitor. She bolted the monitor into its space towards the front of the hover board and then started figuring out which pieces of metal would be strong enough for her creation.

"Are you planning on painting it or are you going to leave it looking like a bunch of bolted together metal?" Jack asked, not meaning to sound snotty.

"Actually. These are just for its protective casings. I've still got to weld the sheets of Cryrithium around it. Then I'll paint it." Shaen said as she started to bolt things together and onto the hover board.

"Cryrithium?" Jack asked. "Is that another one of your inventions?"

"No. It's the strongest substance in existence. There's a little less than 15 on every planet and only about 0.0001 on any asteroid. The greatest things about it are that it's a self renewing resource, it's practically indestructible, and only a handful of people even know it exists." Shaen replied. "When I'm done putting the casings onto the hover board and welding the Cryrithium to it, do you want to help me paint it?"

"Sure." Jack responded. "But I think I just heard your mother call us down for dinner."

"Jack?"

"Hmm?"

"She's not my mom."

"I know. Come on. Let's go eat."

"Alright."

Shaen and Jack walked into the kitchen just as Mercuri was dishing out the pasta and sauce. Mercuri looked as if she had been crying and Riddick was no where to be found.

"Is he eating with us?" Shaen asked.

"Is he even here?" Jack muttered.

"No to both. I'm sorry. He just kind of up and left after I started crying." Mercuri said. "Don't ask, please. Come on and eat."

Dinner was eaten in relative silence and everyone retired to their rooms to sleep.

Riddick, meanwhile, had started to seek out Seth and Danny. He was going to deliver a little message to them. 'Stay away from Shaen or suffer.' He glided silently through the city until he finally spotted them. They were grouped together with a few others, looking at something that Seth was holding. Riddick got close enough to hear what they were talking about and settled in among the shadows.

"Alright Blaine. This is Shaen's next experiment. Or the one she's planning to do next anyway. She's going to try and reverse the insanity that she got from the last one." Danny explained.

"Alright. And this concerns me how? All I want to know is when you two are planning to pitch the idea of mind control to her. I want her for my own." The tall boy with long red hair responded. He was obviously Blaine.

"Patience my friend." Seth said with a chuckle. "Shaen's a smart cookie. She's figured out all other possible outcomes, should something go…_wrong_. Like it did last time."

"It should've worked last time. But you imbeciles screwed it up." Blaine spat.

"We know." Danny said with a sigh. "But this time. There's no possibility of screwing up."

"Anyways," Seth interrupted. "There's only two other outcomes. The first one is that she becomes weak minded, so you could pretty much control her like that. The second one is that she loses her free will and walks around like a slave. So it's a win-win situation for you."

"I see." Blaine said. "And what do you need for this little…_accident_…to happen?"

"This." Seth said and handed him a slip of paper. "It's a type of colorless liquid that they use in slave collars. You can buy it from the big guys in the underground. We can't get it though."

"Why not?" Blaine inquired. He looked at the slip of paper and then back at Seth and Danny.

"We're not important enough." Danny said.

"Alright. You'll have your ZO-45 liquid in a few days." Blaine said. "Good evening." Riddick heard and watched all but two leave. Seth and Danny.

"Seth, I don't know about this. I mean what has Shaen ever done to us?" Danny asked as they walked back through the alley. They were just passing Riddick's hiding spot when he jumped out in front of them.

"W-Who are you?" Danny asked. He couldn't see anything of the very tall very strong looking guy in a black hood and black combat clothes. "We didn't do anything."

"Stay away from the girl." Riddick's thunder-like voice told them threateningly.

"Who the fuck do you think you are? You can't tell us what to do. I'll fuck you up man." Seth said and pulled out a flimsy looking switchblade. He lunged at Riddick, who stepped aside and stuck his shiv into Seth's sweet spot. Riddick then turned to Danny, who was quivering in fear.

"Leave the girl alone…or you'll end up like your friend here." With that he pulled his blade out, wiped it on Seth's shirt and threw the corpse down.

Danny took one look at Seth's body and quickly nodded his head. "A-alright, dude. We'll leave her alone. Just chill." With that he took off running down the alley.

Riddick smirked and tossed the dead body of Seth into the shadows before disappearing towards the edge of town. He stopped on the roof of an abandoned building and looked out across the sleeping city. His conversation with Mercuri replayed in his head as he fiddled with his shivs.

"_What happened to you?" He had asked when he heard Jack shut Shaen's door._

"_I grew up." She had responded a bit sadly._

"_That's not what I mean and you know it Mercuri." He had gotten up and started cutting things for the sauce for dinner, though he'd doubted that he'd be there to eat it. "What happened to that fiery, feisty young woman that I used to know?"_

"_She got a reality check."_

"_More like you got Shaen." Riddick had been slapped at that point. "Look what's happened to you. You used to have a strong will, a fierce heart, defiance, unbridled passion…what happened?"_

"_Shaen grew up and made some of the worse friends I could've imagined." Mercuri had finally said._

"_Why do you let her get away with everything?" he asked, looking at her with worry in his quicksilver colored eyes._

_Mercuri had sighed and quite calmly replied, "I don't have a choice really. I have no control over what she does. It's my own fault, too. I didn't enforce many rules while she was young and I didn't punish her, simply because I figured that she'd been through enough, and now I can't control her. That's why I wanted you and Jack to stay for a while. To try and enforce some control on her."_

_Riddick looked at his friend sadly. Something has to be done about that girl. He told himself. And you're just the person to do it. "I'll do what I can, Ri. You on the other hand, need to learn to say no and start taking time to get back to being who you used to be." Riddick said. He'd seen Mercuri start to cry and that's when he'd left. While traveling through the city, he'd decided he'd start fixing Shaen by getting rid of her so-called friend_s.

Riddick shook his head, as if to rid himself of the conversation, and started back towards Mercuri's house. He got there and went around back to sneak in but sounds coming from the shed in the far back caught his attention. Riddick quietly glided over to the shed and looked in. There sat Shaen, hunched over her hover board and welding something around it.

"You don't have to sneak upon me, you know." She said without looking up from her task.

"How did you know?" Riddick asked. No one had ever heard him sneak up on them before. Not even Jack's hearing was that tuned.

"Hybrid thing." Shaen responded, turning off the welding spike and moving over towards the heat cutter. She placed the diamond attachment on it and started cutting along a 4x6 outline on a glass panel.

"What are you making?" Riddick asked, moving over towards the hover board. It was a like a cross between a surfboard and a long board skateboard. The length of a long board skateboard but the shape of a surfboard.

"That," She said, gesturing to the hover board. "Is what was in my closet this afternoon. It's a hover board. I made it." Shaen waked over to the hover board and fitted the shatter-proof glass panel, that she'd just cut, into the space above the holographic monitor. It clicked in place and Shaen smirked. "Now all that's left is to paint it." She said, more to herself than to Riddick.

"That's going to have to wait until later. You need to get some sleep." Riddick told her sternly, though he was impressed with the ultra slim, ultra light machine.

"Why?" Shaen questioned, picking up the board and taking it out of the shed.

"You have training tomorrow." Riddick told her, closing the doors behind them.

"Oh." Shaen said a bit dismally. "About that, I won't be able to do your little training thing. At least not with you and Jack. I kind of have a condition that makes me prevent myself from those types of things."

"Excuses, Excuses." Riddick chided.

"No. Riddick. I'm serious." Shaen said. She looked Riddick in the eyes, her bright liquid green color reflecting in his quicksilver one. "Last time I tried to train with someone, I almost killed them. It's like there's a monster in me that comes out when I start to fight. I think it might be the other part of me…the non human part." By now she looked scared.

Riddick stooped down to her level and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ears. "Look, Shaen, there's nothing to be afraid of. Jack and I are highly skilled and pretty much wanted throughout space. If it gets out of hand, we'll deal with it, alright?" He asked, trying to sound comforting and strong.

Shaen sighed and thought a moment before saying, "Alright."

They went inside and Shaen drifted off to sleep while Riddick thought of ways to best train her. He looked at Jack, who was sleeping peacefully at his side and decided that he'd start Shaen out the same way he'd started Jack's training. All that was left to do was wait until morning…early morning.


	10. Midnight Slaughter, Midnight Escape

Jack's eyes shot open as she was shaken awake by Riddick. It took her a second to realize what was going on, then she heard it.

Screams, terrible screams. Coming from everywhere, everyone. Screams of pain, of fright. Merciless laughter could be heard through out the city as home after home was invaded and its occupants slaughtered before each others eyes.

Riddick was crouched down by the door and he kicked Jack's blades and boots over to her just as the front door burst open. He heard anywhere from five to eight people enter and start up the stairs. He heard a bedroom door get kicked open and that was the lovely time that he remembered the other occupants of the house. "Mercuri." He muttered. Riddick looked at Jack, Who was crouched down next to him, shivs in hand, and said, "I have to go help her. You get Shaen and get the hell out of here. Meet me back at the skiff."

Jack nodded and followed Riddick as he stealthily and quickly left the room. Just as they were about to split up, They saw the red flash of Shaen's hair below them and watched as she ran into her mother's room, slaughtering two of the eight people on her way. They heard a scream that was full of both pain and rage before dropping down and taking out the remaining six soldiers.

The house seemed void of any kind of threat now that the first eight were gone and none had followed them. Shaen sat in the far corner, hunched over Mercuri's lifeless body. She was bleeding from her left arm and the blade was still in the wound. It had lodged itself in her bone and she didn't care.

"No. You can't die. Please don't leave me. I need you here. You took care of me. Please. I'm sorry I killed Marco. I'm sorry. Please don't leave me. Mercuri...please." Shaen muttered as she rocked back and forth in front of the body. Her eyes were filled with tears and there was blood surrounding her mouth and covering her hands. Her eyes burned a brighter green than before and they had a wild yet scared and lost look in them.

"Shaen…" Jack started after making sure the house was clear for now. "Come on we have to go."

Shaen turned to face her and said, "I can't. I don't have anywhere to go. Mercuri's….she's dead."

Riddick, who couldn't be worried with small talk right now walked over and threw Shaen over one shoulder.

"Jack. Let's go." He said.

They raced down the stairs and out the door, into the blood filled streets. Shaen had scrambled off of Riddick's shoulder and ran back inside of the house and grabbed a black backpack and the keys to her ship. She muttered a holy prayer of rest for Mercuri before heading after Riddick and Jack. She caught up with them just as they reached the docking bay and stopped them.

"I've got a better, faster ship." She told them as they were about to board their beaten to hell Skiff. "Get whatever you need from that thing and get over to dock H."

With that she sprinted off towards the dock and opened it. Shaen had flown the ship before so she had it running and the hyper drive almost fully loaded when Riddick and Jack got onboard. Riddick immediately headed over to the controls only to find that everything was ready to go. Shaen also still had the knife in her arm.

"Sit." Shaen commanded while punching digits in on the holographic control panel.

The ship's lights blinked red and then green and Shaen shut the hatch and got them into orbit. Once they were a safe distance away from New Mecca and the Helion system, she got out of the captains chair.

"Wait another ten minutes before using the hyper drive…if you're going to use it." She said hollowly and walked away.

Riddick looked after her, feeling bad about what had happened before checking the coordinates that Shaen had put in. He tried to change them but found that they were locked and that Shaen had a password on them. He decided to find her and find out where they were going.

Jack stared dully out the window at the diminishing Helion system and felt the need to cry. She didn't intend to break down just them, thought, and thought it better to occupy her mind with exploring the ship. It was a good sized ship and very unlike anything she'd ever seen. _Probably another one of Shaen's creations._ She thought, walking down a short corridor. It looked small from the outside, but Jack supposed that it was just another illusion of Shaen's, because it was quite large on the inside.

Riddick followed both the scent of blood and the sound of someone beating the living hell out of a punching bag until her found Shaen in a training room. It was good sized and had just about anything you could think of, due to the coarse generator that Shaen had installed. She was currently in the corner, beating the shit out of a punching bag with her bare hands. She still hadn't seemed to notice the blade protruding from her arm and Riddick figured he should get it out as soon as possible and not risk infection.

"Shaen." He started. The girl whipped around and executed a perfect roundhouse kick to the punching bag before stopping it and looking at him.

"What?" She asked, her knuckles bleeding and her blood mixing with the blood of the men she'd slain earlier.

"Does that hurt?" Riddick asked, not fully believing that she couldn't feel a knife embedded in her arm.

He pointed to it and Shaen looked down at the knife and looked sincerely surprised.

"Actually…no. It didn't know it was there." She said as she tried to pull it from her arm. She winced as the pain finally hit her. "Alrighty then…that hurts now."

"Come here." Riddick told her.

He led her towards the bathroom he'd passed earlier and looked for a Med-kit.

"There's a med-kit under the sink." She told him.

Riddick nodded and grabbed it. He then stuck his head out of the door and looked around for Jack.

"Jack. Come here and help me with this." He called. Jack rounded the corner just as he'd finished the sentence and smiled at him.

"Alrighty." She went into the bathroom and made sure Shaen didn't move her arm from the position that Riddick had it in and also made sure that Shaen didn't pass out from the pain. "So Shaen…did you finish the hover board?" She asked, trying to keep her conscious.

"Yeah. It's in the blue 4x6 box in my backpack." Shaen said, not looking at Riddick, who was waiting until he was sure that she wasn't paying attention to her arm before removing the knife.

"Cool. Hey where are we going?" Jack asked now.

"Khrebet." Shaen replied. She gasped as Riddick pulled out the knife and her surroundings started to get fuzzy.

"Jack. Keep her with us." Riddick said as he hurried to staunch the bleeding of Shaen's arm. He wiped away the blood and applied the acid that would close the wound for now, before wrapping it with gauze. Then he cleaned up her hands, wrapped them too, and cleaned the blood from around her mouth. He finished and turned to Shaen.

"Shaen…are you okay?" He asked, not wanting her to pass out on them. He hadn't ever heard of Khrebet and wanted to make sure that it wasn't hostile.

"Just spiffy." She said softly and hopped off of the sink. She followed Jack and Riddick out of the bathroom and into the control room. "I suppose you want to know where Khrebet is."

"Not really. I don't care, just as long as it isn't hostile." Riddick said. Jack nodded in agreement.

"It's not hostile. In fact it's barely populated. Mostly just underground junkies that need to lay low or recuperate. Oh yeah, and there's some pretty cool shops there, apartments too. The works. All kept in a low profile. No mercs, police, or really anyone outside of the handful of underground junkies that live there, even know it exists." She explained. "So it's just dandy."


	11. Just Dandy

"Just dandy." Shaen repeated softly before sitting down in the captain's chair and resting her head against the smooth metal of the control deck. Her mind was swimming with everything that had happened in the short amount of time that she'd known Jack and Riddick. It made her feel sick to her stomach and she suppressed the urge to break down again. Shaen felt her barriers rising back up and getting dusted off.

Shaen had gotten so lost in trying to sort things out that she jumped at the light touch on her shoulder and her head flew up. She looked to her left to see Jack's hand resting on her shoulder. Shaen moved her shoulder roughly, shaking Jack's hand away.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked. She'd seen the way that Shaen had been when they'd killed Mercuri.

"I'm fine." Shane said. Although she was lying through her teeth, it didn't really show. She stood up and left into a different part of the ship.

Jack sighed and walked over to Riddick, who'd been standing in the doorway. She gently rested her head on his chest and sighed. "She's so…stubborn."

"Remind you of someone?" Riddick asked, wrapping one arm around her waist and using his free hand to stroke her hair.

"Yeah. She's almost as stubborn as you." Jack said with a smirk. She lifted her head up and looked at Riddick with mischief in her eyes.

"I was actually speaking about you." Riddick joked. He poked Jack's forehead lightly and smirked. His face suddenly turned serious when a little red light went off in the hallway behind them.

"Ooh. Red flashing lights. Shall we?" Jack asked and gestured down the hallway.

Riddick rolled his eyes at her lack of concern but then noted that he didn't feel very concerned either. "If I have to…I guess." He said playfully before following Jack down the hall.

The flashing red light came from a small panel to the left of the doors to the Gym. It signaled that a highly dangerous training process was underway and that under no circumstances should you enter the room. Jack looked at the display panel before clicking the 'view' button. It brought up the information on the training course and the current status of the individual undergoing the process. Jack's and Riddick's eyes scanned the information and they roughly concluded that Shaen was doing something to hone her fighting abilities.

"I can't see anything." Jack complained, looking through the big window that allowed others to watch the training. It was pitch black in the gym but yet there were sounds of fighting. Suddenly a dark liquid splattered against the window, causing Jack to jump. She was always tense in situations that involved complete darkness and dark fluids. It reminded her of the first time she'd seen Riddick on that dreaded planet, T2. Jack was about to ask Riddick what he could see when something flew into the glass and slid to the ground. Seconds later the computerized voice announced that the training had been failed. The lights came back on in the Gym and there lay Shaen, in the middle of a massive pool of blood. Bodies of things that couldn't be described in words littered the floor and one of them stood immobilized over Shaen. Before either the stunned Jack or the amused Riddick could move, Shaen's foot came up and kicked the…thing…into the wall.

"Training complete." She muttered before pulling herself up and heading for the door. Once outside, the gym locked itself down and tiny robots came out to clean and repair the Gym as well as dispose of the bodies of the things. Shaen on the other hand walked right past Jack and Riddick, as if she hadn't seen them, and into the bathroom. Before she could get the medical kit back out, her companions were standing in the doorway.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked, looking at the much smaller and younger girl for an explanation.

"Just Dandy." Shaen responded almost mechanically. She grabbed a needle and the stitching thread out of the kit and turned the shower on, letting the water turn frigidly cold before running her arms underneath it. This action exposed many deep wounds littered about her forearms.

"Let me help you with that." Jack offered. She went to take the needle from Shaen, who had already threaded it and was starting to try and stitch herself up. Shaen jerked the needle, and her arm, away from Jack.

"I'm fine. I can do it by myself." She said through gritted teeth.

"No you can't. You'll just damage your arm more if you try." Riddick finally spoke. He moved over to the small girl and grabbed her wrist. With his other hand, he took the needle from her and handed it to Jack before holding Shaen's arms in place.

"I…can…do…it…my…SELF." Shaen said, struggling against Riddick. She finally wrenched one of her wet wrists out of his grip and snatched the needle from Jack, who'd been half way through sticking it into her arm. The sudden jerk caused Shaen to rip her own skin and drop the needle, which hung about a foot below her arm on the thread. Riddick grabbed her other hand while Jack continued sewing her up. After a few more flesh rippings, Shaen finally peacefully allowed them to sew her up.

"See? It works so much better and goes so much faster when you're not intent on ripping your flesh off." Riddick said sarcastically. He got a glare that would strike your mother dead from Shaen who violently tried once again to tear her arms away from him. Jack tied the thread and cut the needle off before Riddick finally let go.

Shaen said nothing but proceeded to the gym once again. She was about to open the door and start the course again when Riddick stepped in front of her. He put an arm on the doorway, blocking her entry.

"Get out of my way." Shaen said coldly. She had started to develop Riddick's original attitude. Cold, complacent, seemingly uncaring, and stubborn as hell.

"No. You're not going back in there." Riddick said, backing the girl away from the door way.

"Try and stop me." Shaen growled. She quickly skittered under Riddick's arm and into the gym where she ordered the computer to initiate course #4571. Riddick stepped into the Gym just as the door sealed itself and the computer released the…things… that Shaen had been fighting earlier. "Damn it Riddick! You're not supposed to be here!" She screamed just before the lights went out.

One of Riddick's hands quickly pulled down his goggles, allowing his shined vision to activate. (For lack of a better word). The room radiated the same color purple and Shane's small frame radiated with blues and red handprints from where he'd been holding her arms down only ten minutes earlier. He watched as the…things…came towards her, a few of them started to attack her but then he realized what they resembled. The entire sequence that Shaen had been throwing herself into was an almost exact replica of what must've happened in the room shortly before Mercuri died. At first, Riddick contemplated fighting the replica guards but he soon realized two things. One being that the bots weren't interested in him, only in Shaen and the wounded figure she was fighting so hard to protect. And the second being that if he interfered, Shaen would never realize that she couldn't have saved Mercuri, no matter how hard she'd tried.

_Her way of coping._

_She's so stupid._

_Shut up._

_Make me. You know I'm right._

_Look, first off shut up and second off, let her deal with it her own way._

_Why?_

_She'll realize that it's not her fault. One less thing to worry about later on._

_True…but she's still stupid._

_Shut up._

_I'm just voicing what you refuse to acknowledge that you think._

_That doesn't even make sense._

Riddick's argument with himself was cut short by the scream of death coming from the Mercuri bot and the shriek of rage from Shaen. He watched in amusement as the smaller girl started recklessly tearing the bots limb from limb. The computer shut down the system and the lights returned to their normal dimness. Riddick left his goggles around his neck and walked over to Shaen. He bent down to inspect the slashes that Shaen had put into the bots and then asked,

"What kind of shiv are you using?" He asked. The rips in the bodies didn't look like they'd been made by any kind of Shiv that Riddick had seen…or made.

"I don't use shivs." Shaen said, pushing the button the made the cleaning bots come out.

"Don't lie." Riddick said, half amused but kind of pissed that this teenager had the audacity to lie to him. He noted in his mind that she reminded him of a younger female version of himself.

"I'm not. I use these." She said and held up her blood covered hands. All round her the cleaning bots were hard at work. Two of them came over and pulled the body away from Riddick, who had just stood up, perplexed.

"You mean to tell me that you ripped these things open with your hands?" He asked, clearly disbelieving.

"No. I mean to tell you that I ripped those things apart with these." She said and flicked the blood off of her hands. She cracked the top knuckle on each finger and claws replaced her nails. "Quite sharp. Quite painful." She said, looking at them before cracking her bottom knuckle and popping them back in. "Not quite sure if they're a side effect of one of my experiments or just a side effect of being born a hybrid. Unlike my vision, which is the natural equivalent of your shined eyes."

Riddick watched in slight disgust as Shaen popped her 'claws' out and back in. "That's what you fight with?" He asked, making a mental note to teach her to fight with a shiv.

"Yeah."

Just then the computer unlocked the Gym and Jack entered. She had a small smile on her face.

"That's crazy." She said and motioned to Shaen's hands. "I saw and heard it all out there. Can you really see like Big Bad over here?" She asked and gestured to Riddick.

"Yeah. Only I was born able to do it." Shaen said.

"How many days until we get to Khrebet?" Riddick asked, suddenly changing the topic. He'd gotten tired of the topic and was rather looking forward to either teaching Shaen to fight with a shiv or throwing her into a cryo locker for awhile and THEN teaching her to fight with a shiv.

"About two months. Why? Bored of the ship already? I've got cryo lockers." Shaen said, shuddering as she said cryo lockers. Jack's eyes lit up a bit dismally, for she was addicted to cryo-sleep. For her, it was a momentary escape from the harsh world of reality.

"Where?" Riddick asked, starting towards the door for the gym. He left and started towards the control room.

"Wrong way." Shane's voice said from the opposite end of the hallway. She walked into a small room whose furnishings were two cryo lockers and a chair that was capable of cryo-sleep, but hadn't been used ever. Jack's slender pale hands ran over the chair and her eyes darted from Riddick to the cryo lockers.

"Riddick…I think it's a good idea for us to go into cryo…after all it's going to be about two moths before we reach the planet." Jack said.

Riddick nodded and said, "Alright, you and the kid go into cryo, I'll keep the ship running."

"I think not. You and Jack can go into cryo. I'm not a big fan of it." Shaen interjected. She opened the two lockers and ushered Jack into one.

"Absolutly not. You and Jack are going into cryo." Riddick stated

"No. I won't" Shaen told him pointedly, she rigged up Jack's cryo tubes and set the timer for her tube before closing it. all she had to do was push the 'initate' button.

"Stop being so stubborn."Riddick said.

"You first." Shaen tossed back. "I refuse to go into cryo."

Riddick finally had enough and was about to toss the annoyingly stubborn child into the cryo locker when she said something that made sense to him and was shockingly a valid point.

"I can't go into cryo. What if something happened to the ship? You don't know how to fix it…or run it. Besides, I've had bad experiences with cryo sleep." She pushed the blinking button on Jack's tube and the cryo fluid started pumping into her. Jack was asleep within moments with a small smile upon her face.

"Fine." Riddick finally gave in. He never actually slept while under cryo so it didn't really affect him much. But Shaen did have a valid point, which made him be the one to take the tube. Without another word, he stepped into the tube, hooked up his riggings and waited for her to close the door and start it. Shaen smiled a little bit but it was soon replaced by Riddick going half conscious as the fluid pumped into him.

"Nighty night." Shaen said shortly before leaving the room. Red lights bounced off of the walls in the hallway not five minutes later, a sure sign that Shaen was yet gain, back in the gym.


	12. Trust

Now though Riddick was in cryo, He wasn't really IN cryo. His thoughts were still active and he watched Shaen as she came in each day (or what he supposed was each day) and checked on them. She would stare for hours at his tube, as if she knew that he wasn't really asleep.

One day, Shaen actually came into the room and turned off Riddick's cryo tube, causing him to completely awaken. When asked why, she'd responded that she'd thought that he'd want "a break from sitting in that fucking thing". Riddick had promptly hit Shaen in the arm somewhat lightly and reprimanded her for cussing.

"Look, the last thing we need is for you to become some shit-mouthed teenager." He'd told her, shortly before she'd left the ship with him in tow.

They were docked in a scarcely populated planet so that they could refuel and so that Shaen could get something else to occupy her mind. They'd walked through the docking bay and into the city and visited the few shops and stalls that were there, talking the entire time. Riddick would ask her questions about her abilities, training, her life up till this point, and Shaen would answer with the shortest, to-the-point answers that she could think of. She'd told Riddick her life story…or at least as much of it as she could remember. Shaen, in turn, would ask "Richard" about his life, how he became to be what he was now, where he met Jack and other such things. Riddick answered only the questions that he thought needed to be answered and left the others either unanswered or he'd avoid them by asking Shaen another question.

"Why don't you sleep when you're in cryo?" Shaen asked, picking up an assortment of computer chips and sorting through them. She already had her next project in mind and mentally had made a checklist of things to get so she could start making it.

"Habit. Once you've had a life like mine you never let your guard down. I never completely let myself go into cryo." Riddick answered. Now it was his turn to ask a question. "Why do you continue to blame yourself for Mercuri's death?"

Shaen paused what she was doing briefly and then went back to getting the right chips.

"Who says I do?" She asked, without looking up. Finally, she gathered up about ten chips and paid for them before sticking them in her pocket and walking back to the ship.

"You turn that simulation on every other day. You must've gone through it at least fifty times already." Riddick told her, following the girl back into the docking bay.

"Sixty three. But I still could've done something to prevent her death." Shaen said a bit coldly.

"No you couldn't have." Riddick contradicted her.

"Yes I could've!" She screamed. "In every one of those simulations, in every possible tactic, there was a flaw on my part. She'd still be alive if I had just taken down that bastard when I had the chance!" Without another word, and with tears stinging at her eyes, Shaen ran onto the ship and locked herself in her room.

Riddick, not being one of the men that could deal with an emotional person, much less an emotional female, stood in the threshold of the ship for a moment, debating whether or not he should bother her. He fought with himself, telling the beast in him that she needed time, while it argued that she needed to stop being weak and get over it. Finally he decided to do what he used to do when Jack got emotional.

"Shaen…" Riddick called softly through the door. He could hear the girl crying softly and telling herself that she needed to stop being weak. "Open the door."

"Uh…give me a minute." She answered in a somewhat hoarse voice. Shaen wiped her eyes, reversed the ball cap that she'd found on her bed and resumed looking like a boy. She'd even gone so far as to wrap her chest with gauze to stop her lanky form from revealing her true gender. When she opened the door, the tears were gone and she didn't even look as if she'd been crying. The only evidence that anything had upset her at all was the small trail of moisture running from her tear duct off of her chin.

"Come here a minute." Riddick said. He took her by the hand, which he noted now had cut off biker gloves on it, and led her back into the city.

"Where are we going?" Shaen asked. She looked around her in slight confusion as Riddick guided her towards an abandoned store in the city. It was tall enough that if you fell off of it without someone to catch you or something to cushion the fall, you'd hurt yourself. But it was only a one story store.

"Climb up there and turn your back to me." Riddick said and pointed to the roof of the store. Shaen looked perplexed but climbed up to the roof using the fire escape. When she was standing with her back to Riddick he took a step backwards. "Do you trust me?" He asked.

"What?" Shaen asked, turning around slightly.

"Turn back around and answer the question. Do you trust me?" Riddick stood there, waiting for her answer. She'd had almost the same reaction as Jack had when he'd first done this to her.

Shaen turned around and hesitated a moment before saying, "Yeah. I trust you."

"Then close your eyes and let yourself fall backwards off of the building." Riddick told her.

"You're crazy." She mumbled before closing her eyes and slowly letting herself fall from the roof. During the short free fall, Shaen was rushed with a strange mix of emotions. She landed softly but securely in Riddick's arms and he set her down before asking,

"What did you feel when you were falling?" He watched her ponder the question, perhaps trying to find the right word for the feeling.

"Fear at first, before falling. Adrenaline, as I started to fall. Euphoria, while in the free fall. And then…Security and trust, when you caught me." She finally said.

"Feel better now? The first step to recovery is to trust the people you turned to for help. I knew Mercuri very well; she wouldn't have wanted you to blame yourself for her death." Riddick said, taking the smaller girl's hand and walking back to the ship. He kept in the shadows, just in case someone was looking for them.

"Actually I do feel better…thanks." Shaen said. She was afraid at first that Riddick would've let her fall and hurt herself, but she was somewhat amazed when he'd actually caught her. It was the first time she'd trusted someone with her well being since her so called friends had messed with her invention and caused her to be slightly crazy. They had, in effect, also made her concentrate on making everything that she did as flawless as possible. That's what caused her to break down when Mercuri had died. She hadn't thought it out, merely acted on her primal instinct. The same instinct that told her that Jack and Riddick could be trusted. It was almost like something inside of her could sense that they had primal instincts as well. She was snapped out of her thoughts by the hissing of a ship door. When she looked around, she realized that they were back in the ship and that Riddick had turned the dial to close the hatch.

"Why are you dressed like that?" He asked from the captain's chair. Riddick sat with the lights dimmed to almost complete darkness and had his feet crossed on the smooth metal of the control panel.

"Like what?" Shaen questioned. She walked to the center of the control room and pulled herself into the titanium storage shelf above the co-pilot's chair. She lay there, looking over at Riddick, who had a slightly amused smirk on his face.

"Like a boy." He turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow upon seeing her lounging on the storage shelf. "You do know that's for storage, right?"

"Yeah. I just like high places." She paused and said, "It's easier to pass myself off as a boy anyway…and it's easier for people to accept someone like me if they thought me to be a boy." She explained, looking him. Shaen rolled onto her back and rotated her head so that she could still watch his reactions. This motion caused her hat to fall off and her long hair to come cascading over the edges of the shelf like a crimson waterfall.

"It'll be a bit hard for people to accept you as a boy if you stop wearing baggy clothes or they see that." Riddick mused and pointed at the crimson curtain of hair.

"Alright, so I cut off my hair. I've already got the baggy shirt problem under control." Shaen's small hand reached over and gathered up her long hair and she brought it around to her face to look at it before sighing.

Riddick removed his goggles and flicked the lights off, causing his vision to solarize everything. The cold inanimate objects showed up as blackness with a purple outline, while the shelf that Shaen was resting on radiated more of a hot pinkish outline from where the girl's body heat had seeped through. Riddick's eyes finally looked over at Shaen. Her miniature form radiated more heat from her torso than it had before. Instead of radiating only in blues, which was odd for someone anyways, she radiated in the original shades of blue for her arms legs, neck and head, but now her torso was shades of red, orange, and yellow. Almost like a small fire.

"Shaen, how many shirts are you wearing." Riddick asked, hoping that that was the cause and it wasn't the fact that she'd wrapped her chest or something like that.

"Two." Shaen responded, sliding off of the shelf and walking towards the gym again.

"Take the gauze off of your chest. You'll damage yourself doing that." Riddick called.

"Doing what?" She questioned innocently. Curious as to how he knew she'd wrapped her chest to hide her appearance, Shaen absentmindedly fiddled with the edge of the gauze. She walked into the gym and was about to play around with a training course that she'd completed billions of times before when Riddick was suddenly right next to her.

"Wrapping your chest to pass yourself off as a boy." Riddick answered. He slid one hand over the back Shaen's shirt and found the edge of the gauze, which he purposefully but playfully tugged on. "That's going to damage your chest in the long run." He told her before stepping to her left with his arms crossed. "What'cha doing?" Riddick asked, looking over her shoulder at the panel with the list of courses on it.

"I dunno. Something to occupy the mind I suppose." Shaen said. She pushed Riddick's warning about damaging her chest out of her mind as she tapped the scroll button and went to the second page of the list. Her fingers played with the holographic touch panel for a couple of seconds before she chose one titled, "Slaughter Fest 3." She played around with the settings and was about to hit the initiate button when Riddick said,

"Take the gauze off first." He shooed Shaen out of the Gym and into the bathroom. While she was inside, he went back to the Gym and upped the player total. Now they were both going to go through a completely different simulation. He'd purposely changed the course as well, to see how well she'd react to an attack if she were unprepared.

When Shaen got back into the gym and the door shut with a quiet swooshing noise, she had only a few seconds to look towards Riddick before they were plunged into complete darkness and several bots came out from the ceiling, walls and other places. The door locked and Shaen's primal instincts flashed and her sight changed from normal to her night vision…or the equivalent of Riddick's shined eyes.


	13. Allergies

The fight had barely started when music started to accompany the bots, which were pouring out from everywhere. Riddick's mind barely registered the new noise, as he was actually having fun killing the bots.

Shaen's mind recognized the song briefly as she flipped backwards onto the wall and jumped over three bots. Her claws came out and there was a flicker of light shortly before the bots fell to the ground, each with a resounding thud, and Shaen ran towards the group that were coming up behind Riddick.

Riddick saw the deep blue colored figure of Shaen coming towards him and the group he was easily bringing down. She looked tired but fully alert as she joined the fray. Riddick's ears caught the sound of her ragged breathing and also the snap of a mechanical neck shortly before he slashed the throat of one of the bots. Looking around he estimated that only ten or so bots were left. Most of them unable to move, but still able to fight if he or Shaen got too close. As the last of the bots hit the ground, Riddick finally turned his attention towards the abused looking girl.

"You okay?" He asked.

Shaen didn't look at him but instead her eyes darted around momentarily before closing. She slowed her breath and listened carefully for the last bot. There had to be at least one left, for the computer had not announced weather the simulation had been passed or failed. Shaen silenced Riddick by holding up her hand and listened as hard and carefully as she could.

Swishing silently was the rope that hung from the ceiling.

A small wooden creak from the balance beam in the far corner.

Heart beats from Riddick's chest.

Faint whirring from the air conditioner overhead.

A mechanical shifting from behind her.

_There you are._ Shaen thought.

She barely had time to register the enemy before hearing quick footfalls and then feeling something small jab into her inner arm, just at the elbow vein.

"Shit." She thought before it all went black and she hit the ground with a thud.

Riddick looked from Shaen to the bot before knocking its head off and picking up the unconscious child. He silently thought that it had been pretty comical for her to have gone through the process of trying to find the last bot, only to be taken down by a scavenged cryo needle. Thinking it best to just keep Shaen in cryo, He carried her off towards the room in which Jack was still sleeping peacefully in the cryo tube. He set her down in the cryo chair and hooked her up to it, setting the time to only make her sleep for a few hours. He left her alone, resolving to check on her later, and headed to the gym to workout.

Shaen whimpered in her sleep as the haze of her once peaceful dream faded, plunging her into the darkness of her nightmares. Her cries of fright were all but silent as a figure swiftly made his way over towards the girl's sleeping form.

"I do believe that's enough cryo for you." A deep bass voice chuckled. As promised, Riddick had been on his way to check on Shaen when she'd started crying and shrieking. He pushed the abort button on the display panel and gently reached over to Shaen's arm before removing the two needles that had previously been pumping cryogenic sleeping fluid into her veins. Shaen stirred again, this time coming out of the sleep, and muttered a single word.

"Riddick."

The man next to her cracked an amused smirk before answering.

"Yeah, kid. I'm here."

Shaen smiled slightly before her eyes cracked open and she was greeted with the masculine form of Riddick, who was sitting beside her. She gave a sharp inhale of breath before clutching the arm that the needles had been in.

"Why does my arm burn?" She asked, trying to pick her head up off of the back of the chair and failing. She slowly felt her body weakening and the burning in her arm spreading. "Riddick…tell me you didn't put cryo-junk in me." She practically begged.

When she received no answer, Shaen started to worry. Her body had begun to seize up and she started shaking momentarily. Riddick watched as she started to shake and wondered what was going on. Then it clicked with him.

_Cryo-shock._ He thought morbidly.

Riddick wasted no time in heading for the medical kit in the bathroom. Time was of the essence and in the next few seconds he was rummaging through the kit looking for the antidote.

By now, Shaen was in immense pain and she started to scream and dig at her own skin, which felt like it was on fire. She thrashed around in the cryo chair and tears stung her eyes. Something in her told her that she was going to die. In the distance, Shaen could hear Riddick quickly making his way back to her, hopefully with the antidote. Riddick looked down at her and said something that Shaen couldn't hear, before setting aside the syringe and taking the careful time to restrain the girl so she wouldn't cause any more damage to herself. Shaen struggled against the leather restraints before she felt the sharp jab of a needle in her chest and everything went black.

Riddick stood there, making sure that Shaen hadn't died before removing the needle, throwing it away, and carefully moving the girl to the lab and setting her on an observation table.

"Time to wake Jack, then." He muttered as he hooked the machines up to Shaen and started them. He checked that they were monitoring the girl's vital signs before leaving the room and rousing Jack from cryo sleep.

Riddick explained everything that had happened once Jack's head was clear and she was Alert. jack made a noise of frustration before reprimanding Riddick.

"Riddick!" She started, making her way out of the cryo room and down the halls towards the lab. "Don't you remember what Mercuri told you? Shaen's **ALLERGIC** to cryogenic solution. The little bit that the bot **MIGHT** have injected into her wouldn't have harmed her. But you!" She turned the corner and continued, "You put **SIXTEEN** ounces of that shit in her body. You could've **KILLED** her. Then we'd be stuck with another body and you'd be blamed for another death and the Mercs would find us. You've got to be more careful!" With the last word, Jack had entered the lab and quickly moved over to Shaen's limp form on the table.

"An observation table? Riddick, sweetie-pie, that's not going to help her. She's got to regenerate whatever she's lost." She informed him, sarcastically calling him sweetie-pie.

Jack walked over to the switch panel by the door and flipped on all the lights for the medium sized lab. In the far corner was a cylindrical tank that was the full height of the room. It was empty at the moment but a small control panel to its left would surely fix that. Jack motioned to the tube.

"Regeneration tank." She explained.

"I know what it is. I just didn't know it was there, cupcake." Riddick responded, saying the last word sarcastically.

Jack scoffed and walked over to the tank's control panel. She pushed a few buttons and a small door slid open on the wall. From this opening came several little robots, which they would later find out, were Shaen's portable Med-bots, complete with anti-gravity cells and power, allowing them to hover around and pick up heavy objects, such as the human body.

Seven of the eight bots zoomed over to Shaen's form, which after their scan had proved to be the life form in need of the tank, and picked her up gently. They transported her over to a small table that had come out of the wall near the tank before opening a slat and sending the table, as well as Shaen into the preparation room, which neither Jack or Riddick could enter. The seven bots that had transported Shaen, returned into the wall while the last one hovered next to Jack.

"Please initiate filling sequence." The bot asked in a mechanical voice.

Jack nodded and pressed a few more buttons. The tank slowly filled with a bluish green fluid. When it was filled with the fluid, the seven other bots placed Shaen inside the tube, where she floated in the middle with nothing touching her. Her chest and pelvic area were covered with a solid black cloth that stuck to her skin and reminded Riddick of electrical tape. Her body was littered with needles and sensors, most of which were monitoring her vitals and allowing her to regenerate missing blood cells and the like.

"I wonder what it feels like." Jack said mostly to herself, as she looked at Shaen's body, suspended in the fluid. The girl's long burgundy hair floated around her idly and a few of the Med-Bots skittered around the Lab, preparing it once more for use.


End file.
